


The Commute

by VacuousGardenia



Category: Original Work
Genre: Accidental Death, Gen, Giantess - Freeform, Murder, POV First Person, Retail, Start Of Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:27:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28861056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VacuousGardenia/pseuds/VacuousGardenia
Summary: The sun's not out yet and a retail employee is late to work. She uses her ability to grow almost a hundred feet tall to get there on time. Hopefully nothing out of the ordinary happens.---A scene detailing someone's tremendous power and start of darkness.
Kudos: 5





	The Commute

I woke up far before dawn, but it still wasn’t early enough- my shift began at 5:30 AM. The buses weren’t running yet, the subway was still broken down, and an Uber cost over an hour of my wages. I had no choice but to commute on foot. I closed my eyes, breathed in deep, and grew.

My legs straddled the quiet, misty road, and I took in my surroundings. It's very dark in the city that spread below me. Most of the light posts don’t work, their copper wire having been stolen and sold away years ago. There was no traffic in the cold, rolling fog, and every establishment on this route would remain closed for hours. Perfect.

In the gloom before dawn, I was a 90 foot tall phantom. No one saw me as I briskly jogged my way to the store. Someone still sleeping might have felt me shake the earth, though. As I made my way to work I thought about the strangeness of all this. It wasn’t the first time I’d shortened my commute in this way. I avoided doing it when I could help it, but even so, I couldn’t deny the exposed growth was a fantastic sensation. There was a thrill in being massive in such an open space, and the world seemed so much more manageable. I mused about how if I used my abilities more often, all of my problems would be as minuscule as the buildings beneath me. On the other hand, if I revealed to the world what I could do, my life would change forever, right?

These thoughts distracted me. I didn’t notice when my foot crashed straight into a burger joint. Just like that, there was a crater where the drive-through window once was. I froze. Surely someone would notice now? The jig was up. Everyone would find out I could grow. People would fear me, and want my power. No one would see me as an equal again. I’d lose my job and in a fit of rage and despair I might step on my piece of shit manager. It’d feel fantastic to turn Brenda into paste, but I would be arrested. On second thought, I realized that was silly. Of course I wouldn’t be. I’d be an unstoppable monster! No one could keep me from doing whatever I wanted, and may heaven have mercy upon those who tried. My reign would begin right then… That was a funny daydream, but after dawdling this long, I was certainly late for work. I brushed the debris of the collapsed drive-through window out of the road, and I nervously continued.

Before long I was able to see the depressing big-box retail store I work at in the distance, one last road away. I slowed my pace, quietly relieved that no further incident had occurred. I was then ready to shrink. As I breathed in deep and steadied myself, however, I felt a bright light creep up from behind me with no warning. A pair of headlights- a car beeping and swerving far below. Someone had seen me.

In that instant, I did not think. I simply brought my foot up and stomped down hard. The screeching crunch of metal echoed through the empty streets. And just like that, silence reigned once more.

I didn't look back at the state of the car. Instead I shrank back down, mortified, and sprinted all the way down to the store. I crossed the doors out of breath, soaked in sweat, and one bad interaction away from breaking down in nerves. Still, I clocked in and began organizing trinkets haphazardly in the decorations aisle, bracing myself for Brenda to chew me out for my tardiness. I thought if I was lucky, she would only insult my runny makeup with a backhanded compliment, humiliate me in public under the guise of ‘work advice’, or cut my hours again. I wouldn’t mind this time. I hoped for just normal, awful, everyday Brenda, with no questions at all about my walk to work.

Then, hours passed. The store felt so peaceful today. It was odd. Was there any management on the sales floor today? The menial work helped distract from my tension, and my lunch break came without incident. For my meal I got the usual: some chips from the vending machine in the break room. I did my best to focus on the crunch of the chips, trying not to think too much about a similar noise underfoot. It was then that a harrowed supervisor came in sharing the awful news.

Our dear manager Brenda's SUV was found a few hundred meters away from the store, mangled and flattened. No one had any clue how this freak accident came to be, but she had been crushed within, beyond any hope of survival.

Upon hearing this I expected a heaviness to sink in, a shiver of guilt in my spine to weigh me down for the rest of my days. That’s what any normal human being would feel, right? To my surprise, I no such emotion stirred within me. On the contrary, actually; I felt light. Good, even. It was unnervingly easy to feign surprise and gasp my way through the news. “Goodness, how awful! She will be missed.” I carried on with my break without a care in the world, and smiled as I finished my chips, relishing their loud, delightful crunch. What had previously been fear turned to excitement. If I got away with it, maybe I could get away with more. And if they caught me? I’d crush that bridge if I ever got there! With that in mind, I made sure to check the work schedules for the week. All of my shifts began before dawn, and I made note of which days that any coworkers I didn’t care for were coming in at the same hour.

It’s decided. I’ll be walking to work more often. There’s ways to make a commute much more satisfying, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Still not super sure exactly how to tag things, but hopefully the ones I used work? Anyway, yeah. It's my first story written in a long time, expanded from an even shorter stream-of-consciousness thing I wrote like a year ago. Fun times. I should write more.


End file.
